Admission Process

Criteria

The Internship requires the AAPI online application, three letters of reference, graduate transcripts, a cover letter, and typically applicants submit their curriculum vita.

Each year the internship program receives many more completed applications than the number of available intern positions. (We typically have five interns and receive twenty times as many applications as there are positions available). The majority of candidates are highly qualified, both in terms of academic performance and letters of recommendation, and it is often very difficult to differentiate the candidates on these bases alone. Consequently, our criteria for selection must examine other variables.

One factor to which we pay close attention is whether the training experiences that we provide are consistent with the needs and interests of the candidate, insofar as those needs and interests are expressed in the application. If it is clear to us that the nature or quantity of certain experiences that a candidate seeks are unlikely to be provided at the UMass Chan Medical School/Worcester State Hospital, we inform the candidate of this and suggest that training needs would be better met at a different facility. Frequently this decision is not based on the candidates' qualifications, but rather on their professional goals and needs.

Secondly, we believe that peer-group learning is an important aspect of the internship training experience. Moreover, it appears that this learning experience is maximized to the extent that the interns in a given year come from very different professional backgrounds and represent widely diverging theoretical orientations. The training program at the UMass Chan Medical School/Worcester State Hospital is not committed to a single theoretical position. We believe that the issues in clinical psychology can be conceptualized from different theoretical stances, and that the interns benefit from having their ideas examined and evaluated from frameworks other than their own. This evaluation process and dialogue are as important from other interns as from supervisors. Thus, we attempt to select a heterogeneous intern group.

Thirdly, we especially welcome applications from minority group members. While Massachusetts' law expressly prohibits asking for such information, those candidates who wish to provide this information will enable us to be consistent with valuable affirmative action policies.

Interview

One goal of the Intern Selection Committee is to match the training needs of the applicant with what this program has to offer. The Selection Committee will thoroughly review each completed application and identify those applicants where there is this goodness of fit. These intern applicants will then be contacted and invited to come for an interview with members of the internship training staff. Several dates will be selected in December and January for the applicant interviews. Every effort is made to arrange an interview with a current intern as well to give the applicant an intern's perspective on the program.